Civics To City: Don’t Close Ladder 116

Elected officials, community leaders and area residents will gather in front of Ladder Company 116 in Dutch Kills at 11 a.m. on Friday, May 7, to send FDNY officials a message.

“Enough is enough,” Gerald Walsh president of the Dutch Kills Civic Association (DKCA), said. DKCA is hosting the rally to keep Ladder Company 116 open, despite word that fire officials are planning to extinguish services provided by firefighters at the century-old firehouse.

“We battled with the city almost a decade ago to keep Engine 261 in operation at the same house,” Walsh said. “We got a lot of empty promises before the city moved in and moved out Engine 261.”

Engine Company 261 and Ladder Company 116 were paired to service the Dutch Kills community and Roosevelt Island out of the “261 House” at 37-20 29th St. in Long Island City until the city shut down the engine company in mid- 2003.

Walsh declared, “We rallied. We battled. We argued our concerns at dozens of meetings and pleaded with city officials to keep Engine Company 261 alive and serving Dutch Kills. We got some promises but no guarantees until the engine was removed from the house.”

Ladder Company 116 was rated the second busiest ladder company in Queens in 2009 in an internal FDNY study—a statistic that seems to escape officials charged with choosing which fire units will close, Dutch Kills Executive Director George Stamatiades said.

“Take away the fact that this will leave residents, schools and businesses in Dutch Kills without an open firehouse. It’s a fact that Ladder Company 116 can get to an emergency at Roosevelt Island in warpspeed time. Can other fire companies match the response time of Ladder Company 116 to Roosevelt Island? We don’t believe they can,” Stamatiades said. “So there’s another community that will be jeopardized by the closing of Ladder 116.”

An FDNY spokesperson told the Gazette that a final decision is pending on which companies will close.

“We are waiting for written word on who will close before we can comment. Right now there are a lot of communities getting riled up before the final decision has been made.”

Residents in Dutch Kills said they are disgusted and afraid of what the future will hold for them if Ladder 116 is shut down.

“Here’s a message to the city: We live here, we vote and we matter,” Thomas Respatto, a resident of 50 years, said. Respatto cannot believe that fire officials are about to put his life in danger.

“If the city does this to us, if they remove our last firefighters, it’s like they’re telling us they don’t care if we burn,” Stamatiades said. “To remove Ladder Company 116 would be a disgrace.”